Platinum Printing

With digital photography technology being so widespread in our modern society, there is virtually no limitations to who can produce their own photographic work.  If you just consider the fact that everyone who owns a smartphone has the ability to take pictures of whatever whenever, you can see that this is true.  Likewise, the technology required to develop/produce physical photographs is also so easily accessible.  All you need is a decent printer.  With the ubiquity of this technology and the ability to easily transform these images into prints, the question becomes How can I make my work stand out?  How is my work different and creative?  While previous posts have addressed this issue in terms of in-the-field and in-camera techniques, there also also ways to express this creativity in the print-making stage of the photography process.  On Outdoor Photographer’s website, photographer Kerik Kouklis explains how he produces platinum prints of digital images, connecting modern photography technology with a piece of film photography tradition.

Platinum printing was first developed in the 1870s by William Willis and was utilized in film development until the beginning of World War I when platinum and palladium were in scarce supply in the United States.  Platinum printing ultimately ended by 1941 when production of platinum papers ceased.  By the time platinum was again available, film photography was relying on other methods for developing images.  As Kouklis explains, platinum printing of digital photos was not really possible until the late 1990s.  This was because printers could not print a digital negative with enough UV density that would enable prints to be made.  This also meant that negatives could not be enlarged to make larger prints.  Kouklis writes that it wasn’t until about the last ten years that printers could print with enough density to produce an acceptable negative and, ultimately, a platinum print.

Today, the process to produce a platinum print of a digital image is relatively simple.  Most photographers who choose to make platinum prints will most often develop their images themselves.  To produce a platinum print, Kouklis says that a digital image is edited just as any other image would be except that at the end of editing, the image needs to be converted to black and white.  Kouklis uses an app called QTR to make digital negatives of these images and prints them onto transparency film.  The negative is then placed in platinum and palladium chemicals.  To expose the image, only UV light is needed so a dark room is unnecessary.  Kouklis suggests making one’s own UV light source, though commercial UV light sources are also available.  Potassium oxalate is used as the developer fluid which occurs very quickly (less than a minute).  The print is then washed and allowed to dry.

For me, the appeal of platinum and palladium printing is that it gives modern digital photographs an old and traditional look and feel.  It bridges the divide between modern digital photography and traditional photography of a long-gone era. In the future if I become really passionate about photography, I think platinum printing would be something that I would be very interested in trying.

Link to Kerik Kouklis' article: https://www.outdoorphotographer.com/tips-techniques/printing-output/platinum-prints-digital-files/